A Steep Faint-End Slope of the UV Luminosity Function at z~2-3: Implications for the Global Stellar Mass Density and Star Formation in Low Mass Halos

Understand

We use the deep ground-based optical photometry of the Lyman Break Galaxy (LBG) Survey to derive robust measurements of the faint-end slope (alpha) of the UV LF at redshifts 1.9<z<3.4.

• Our sample includes >2000 spectroscopic redshifts and ~31000 LBGs in 31 spatially-independent fields over a total area of 3261 arcmin^2.
• These data allow us to select galaxies to 0.07L* and 0.10L* at z~2 and z~3, respectively.
• A maximum likelihood analysis indicates steep values of alpha(z=2)=-1.73+/-0.07 and alpha(z=3)=-1.73+/-0.13.